Which Country is with Most Time Zones in the World

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Time Zone is observed in places with uniform territory for legal, cultural or social purposes. Time Zones are important for keeping times of different regions of the world in check. This allows a particular place, not necessarily depending on the size of the area, to have the same time throughout regardless of sun setting on different times in different parts of that particular place. The time zones are differentiated from one another by establishing a base timeline called the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Because there are 24 hours in a day, a time of a particular time zone can range from anywhere between UTC – 12 to UTC + 12.

Usually the time zones reflected by countries, states or territories are in increments or decrements of whole numbers. That however, is not a hard and fast rule to be followed. For two regions that are culturally different but don’t have that much combined longitude distance between them, the time can be in a “half hour offset” instead of a full hour. India for example has the standard time zone of UTC + 5:30.

UTC vs GMT and Daylight Savings Time

Most people have confusion surrounding UTC and GMT as being the same thing. That is because both have essentially the same time. The distinction lies in UTC being a time standard while GMT is in itself a time zone. A country or a region can have GMT as their standard time zone but no one can have UTC as a time zone. To make it clearer, GMT can be defined as a time zone of UTC +/- 0. Daylight Savings Time is a practice observed across the globe by some countries, especially those in Europe. The rule indicates that the time of a country be adjusted by a further UTC + 1 in order to have an extra hour of daylight. For some regions that time is for a longer business day and for most it is a way to save energy. The practice however is being abandoned by most countries as it often breeds confusion for the people and sometimes international business dealings.

France Local Times Details

Central European Time – is abbreviated as CET Central European Summer Times – is abbreviated as CEST

UTC – GMT Offset

France is GMT/UTC + 1h during Standard Times France are GMT/UTC + 2h during light Saving Times

Daylight Saving Time Usage

France does utilize this. In Europe daylight saving times are often referred to as “Summer Times.”

– Start Date

France starts Daylight Saving Times on Sunday March 30, 2014 at 2:00 AM local times.

– End Date

on Sunday October 27, 2013 at 3:00 AM local time.

Country Rankings of Most Time Zones

France is at the top of the rankings with 12 time zones. It might be a little baffling to find out that a smallish country like France has 12 TZs but the country has a lot of overseas territories. These territories have time ranging from UTC – 10 to UTC + 12

USA has 11 time zones out of which six are for the mainland USA and Hawaii. The rest are from Puerto Rico, American Samoa and other territories. USA is above Russia in ranking because it also two unofficial time zones

Russia also has 11 time zones but unlike France and USA, it doesn’t really have overseas territorial time zones. The country is just really big.

United Kingdom has 9 time zones and that again has to do with the overseas territories.

Australia has a total of 8 time zones out of which three are from the mainland Australia.

Canada, much like USA, has 6 time zones in total but the country doesn’t have any overseas territory to have more.

Apart from the time zones in Metropolitan Denmark and Greenland, there are three overseas territories of Denmark. Making it a grand total of 5 time zones. New Zealand has 5 time zones as well.

Brazil and Mexico both have 4 time zones each to round off the top 10 countries with most time zones.